Lots of falling

So Nathaniel skinned his knee last week. Then, the following day, he had two "owie reports" from daycare when he fell onto a toy and hurt his lip, then fell outside and bonked his forehead. Yesterday, he had another "owie report" because of a scratch on the side of his nose.

The kid is just looking for trouble.

This morning, he lost his balance and, in trying to regain it, almost ran at full speed into a corner. Luckily, he tripped before he got there, fell on the carpet and got back up.

I guess we're at a dangerous time the youngster.

Scraped knee #1

I didn't even notice it until I got Nathaniel home from daycare yesterday, but he has a scraped knee. It looks like he was running a little and fell down on some concrete, perhaps. A bunch of parallel, scratches. Probably no blood when it happened, but there might have been some. Oh well. He's a boy. These things happen.

But try telling that to his Mom!

I told Amanda he scraped his knee, and she looked distraught. She explained that just that morning, she had been admiring how smooth and soft his knees looked, and now the one was all scraped up.

Poor guy.
Poor Mom, too.

Improved hearing?

Nathaniel is definitely getting more verbal (finally), and I can only assume it's because his ear finally are clearing up.

It's indescribably cute to walk into daycare now and see him shoot an arm up when he sees me, wave and (sort of) say "HELLO!" He also waves (not side to side, it's more of a folding of his hand) at anybody who seems nice, including strangers in stores and more. I'm sure that will become troublesome at some point (don't talk to strangers!) but it's just cute right now, and most strangers can't help but smile and say hello back.

Nathaniel also is pleased to be performing the E-I-E-I-O part of "Old McDonald." He'll actually sing it whether or not the song is going on, but he's very good at dropping it into the song where it belongs as well. And he enjoys the "O" part best, making an "o" sound/face, then continuing the "o" for a while. Looks amazingly cute.

There are some other kinda words appearing here and there as well ... he might have said "doggy," for example.

We're really glad to have him talking a little bit now. Makes me feel a lot better.

Now on to Amanda

Now that I'm feeling somewhat better and Nathaniel is on his way to full recovery, Amanda seems to have come down with whatever illness is going around. A friend at work says her two kids (both in the same daycare as Nathaniel) also have it. Good times being had by all.

Something going around

It's hard to tell who is bringing the sickness to whom these days. I don't know where else besides Nathaniel I would have gotten my sickness yesterday (and winding down today) from, but then he didn't seem to be really sick until today (Amanda just went to get him from daycare, where he threw up all over). Hmmmm ... actually, he did throw up on Friday and Sunday, as well. But things really seem to have come to a head today.

So now it's another day of Amanda taking care of her two sick guys. At least I'm feeling a little better today, so maybe I can try to help. That's a great wife/mom, there.

But I need to figure out how she avoids getting sick.

Pancakes

The other day, I was reading Curious George Makes Pancakes to Nathaniel. Nathaniel wasn't really listening, but I was reading it to him anyway.

In the book, George makes pancakes (obviously). The drawings show him making blueberry pancakes and he uses the blueberries to make a smile face.

I just wanted to point out that this doesn't work. I once tried to make a smiley face pancake with blueberries for Amanda. The thing is, the blueberries kinda explode and bleed. The result was a pancake that looked like a bloody, grinning skull rather than a smiley face.

I mention this today because, for Mother's Day, I made chocolate chip pancakes, and they worked MUCH better for creating a smiley face.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY TO ALL!

Nathaniel Dandelionseed

Nathaniel was doing his best Johnny Appleseed impression yesterday when we went for a walk. He would stop at every dandelion in the neighborhood and pet it until every last little floating seed took off into the air.

I'm sure our neighbors love his efforts to spread this weed around.

Oh well. I have enough dandelions myself, but he really seems to have fun playing with them.

A visit to the shore

Amanda, Nathaniel and I went down to the Shore to spend some time with some family this weekend. Getting Nathaniel to sleep in some other environment is a little hit-or-miss ... and this time it went pretty well. He slept OK both nights, generally waking up for a minute once or twice and getting himself back to sleep. That's about the best we can hope for.

Then, Sunday night, we all returned to our own beds and slept like rocks. Nathaniel woke up a good hour or more later than usual and was cheerful as can be ... patiently waiting for us to wake up, then happily waving and smiling when we came into his room to visit (he was listening to his little classical music former mobile thingie).

Off for a regular doctor's visit this afternoon ... trying to find out when or if we should be stopping his bottles of milk; whether his ear tubes are at all clogged; what that minor (but persistent) rash on his leg is; etc.

This is new

Nathaniel is so good at sleeping through the night that it's a real surprise when he doesn't ... and even more or a surprise when it's two nights in a row, like it was last night and tonight. He woke up at 4 a.m. Wednesday morning, then at midnight and 4 a.m. Thursday morning. Isn't this supposed to happen when he's 15 days old, not 15 months? And I'm concerned that he's now capable of realizing that a few minutes of yelling at 4 a.m. might result in getting to sleep with mom and dad ... and that won't break him of the habit anytime soon. This could be a rough one.